Within A Year

Chapter 4

In yet another attempt to find something that interests me, Fletcher decided that we would go to a night time funfair. Once again, the idea of it was certainly not appealing to me. Being surrounded by masses of happy families would be simply torturous. However I also couldn’t stand disappointing Fletcher again so I slapped on my bravest face and pretended as though I was enjoying the experience. In reality, I knew he wasn’t totally convinced but he never complained because he knew that I was trying my best.

“How about we get some sugared donuts?” He suggested, rummaging around in his trouser pocket for some money.

“Sure” I shrugged casually. I felt slightly guilty that Fletcher was spending his money on me because he only received a small amount from his dad and his job didn’t exactly pay well either. I imagined that he saved up for a while in order to pay for all of these activities we were doing. Was I taking advantage of my best friend? I didn’t have time to dwell this thought though as once we had bought the donuts, we had to wait for Olive to arrive.

I had actually chosen to invite her because truthfully, I did like her. She was prepared to listen to me and rarely anybody had done that. Fletcher was also quite eager to meet her as he couldn’t believe that I had actually made a friend on my own. 

“So is she hot?” He questioned jokily, rubbing his hands together to remove all of the sugar. It was typical for him to think like that. He had had a lot of experience with girls and sex. To be quite honest, he was a bit of a player. I didn’t mind though because his relationships were not a concern for me.

“Please don’t embarrass me…” I groaned, frantically looking around to try and spot her.  I wanted her to like me, what I didn’t want was Fletcher spilling all of my past and emotions to her and scaring her off. If she knew for a second that I had thought of killing myself, she would run a mile.

“Me? Embarrass you? I don’t know what you’re talking about…” I hit his arm playfully before suddenly seeing a flash of ginger hair heading towards us.

“Lacey, hi!” She beamed, awkwardly pulling me into a hug. I returned it but only weakly, I didn’t think we were at that level of friendship yet. Olive pulled back and then moved her attention to my best friend standing beside me.

“Oh um, this is my friend… Fletcher” I said, introducing her to him. I could tell by the way that their eyes were glued to each other that they fancied one another. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as Fletcher turned on his charm.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Great thanks” She smiled before hesitating, “Um… you’ve got some sugar around your mouth….” I watched as Fletcher’s eyes widened and he hastily attempted to remove the donut residue, before his cheeks turned a pale shade of pink. Olive shot me a cheeky smirk before shaking her head at the fact that he was so nervous around her.

“Where she we go first?” I piped up, wanting to stop this awkward display of love sick puppies.

“That rollercoaster over there looks awesome” Olive grinned, pointing directly to a large, twisty track that was raised about 50ft into the air. My heart started to pump rapidly against my ribcage. I hated rollercoasters. Much like the go-karts, excitement and adrenaline wasn’t my thing anymore.

“Oh Lacey is scared of them” Fletcher laughed to Olive as though I wasn’t stood right next to him. I guess he was going to try and embarrass me.

“Yeah when we were like… fourteen, we went on this massive one and Lacey threw up everywhere!”

I shot him a death glare as a way to tell him to stop talking but I don’t think he took the hint because he continued to speak.